The Labor Day merger of RadioShack and Leopard-Trek is already vying for a title — longest team name in professional cycling.
Here are some details about RadioShack-Nissan-Trek Professional Cycling Team gleaned from press releases and wire services:
Personnel — Announced so far are The Brothers Schleck, Fabian Cancellara, Chris Horner, Andreas Klöden,
Matthew Busche, Jani Brajkovic, Nelson
Oliveira, Robert Wagner, Jesse Sergent, Ben
King, Jakob Fuglsang, Haimar Zubeldia, and Daniele Bennati.
Teams can have 30 cyclists, and Monday's announcement lists 14.
Where's RadioShack team leader Levi Leipheimer? There's no word on him. Let's hope he's taking his Tour de Suisse, Tour of Utah and USA Pro Cycling Championship trophies this year and negotiating a good contract on a team that needs a leader. [Checking around Tuesday morning, I find that Leipheimer has been rumored to be going to OmegaPharma-Quick Step, although there's nothing official.]
Chuck Norris stand-in Jens Voight, a member of Leopard Trek, also was among those omitted from all the announcements.
More roster announcements on Sept. 15.
License — Leopard will continue to hold the license, so the team officially will be based in Luxembourg. That means the US has lost two major teams this year — HTC Highroad (which could not find a sponsor) and RadioShack.
Garmin-Cervelo and BMC Racing are the remaining ProTour cycling teams licensed in the US.
Marketing — CSE Pro Cycling LLC, an offshoot of the current RadioShack team's management company, will handle marketing operations out of Austin, Texas.
Management — Johan Bruyneel Sports Management will manage the new team. Bruyneel helped create and manage the RadioShack team the past two years; he also has 9 Tours de France championships to his credit.
Bonnie Ford at ESPN calls this a “super team.” Good description.
1 comments
So far Radioshack Nissan have been doing quite well. Could have been a better start for the team if they had not had that many bad luck days in the Spring races. Sure they will come back with great results in the upcoming big 3 week races.